Opinion

Nigeran Civil Service Bureaucratic Corps From A Generational Lens

Published

3 years ago

April 13, 2022

NewTimes

How To Revive Public Schools - Tunji Olaopa

By
Tunji Olaopa

Henry Glassie, the American historian, writes that “History is not the past but a map of the past, drawn from a particular point of view, to be useful to the modern traveller.” This axiomatic statement grounds the fundamental significance of the nature and the relevance of history and historical interpretation in all human endeavors. From statecraft and governance to personal and collective enterprises, history enables us to navigate the present and orients the future. Someone says it is an early warning signal for those who pay the needed attention to its signs. Indeed, for David McCullough, another American historian, “History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” In this piece, I will like to deploy historical analysis to (a) put the present state and future possibilities of the Nigerian civil service in perspective; (b) outline a generational perspective to enable me to figure out the present state, and (c) give an overall picture of who we are and why we are the way we are in the Nigerian civil service.

A generational framework attempts to provide a trajectory of historical analysis founded on the significance of particular generations in history. History is often reckoned with in individualistic terms, as the deeds and actions of strong men and women. A generational analysis, however, relocates the variable of historical significance to generations of individuals in history; those whose collective actions and deeds contributed to the understanding of the paths and directions that history took and is taking. Of course, generations are very difficult to delineate, and this is because one generation merges into another. But this objection is not strong enough to undermine the distinctness of generations in, for instance, administrative history in Nigeria. In most human rhetoric, the idea of generation plays a useful role. However, we fail to explore the deep sociological and historical possibilities inherent in deploying the concept as a significant variable of analysis. I am deploying the idea of “generational capital” to name the potential and possibilities that a generation can bring to bear on the evolution of a family, a community, a nation or an institution. The obverse is also important: generational deficiency links the unwillingness or inability of any generations to the failure of the recipient of their capacities and capabilities.
The trajectory of the emergence and institutionalization of public administration and the civil service in Nigeria benefits immensely from a generational analysis. There are three generations that contribute capital and deficiency to the institutional performance and productivity quotients of the Nigerian civil service. Of course, the first generation of civil servants and public administration belong to what we now fondly refer to as the golden age of the public service in Nigeria. This first generation unraveled between the 50s and the early 60s. This period coincided first with the inauguration of the Nigerian civil service in 1954 as a nascent institution, and the political independence of Nigeria. These two facts significantly attest at once to the quality of the officers that founded the civil service and the institutional quality of the public service itself. The Nigerian state therefore began its post-independence existence with a very strong and professional civil service, regarded as perhaps the strongest of the colonial legacies bequeathed to Africa. This civil service framework was one nurtured on the traditional Weberian structure which required from civil servants the requisite of anonymity, neutrality and impartiality. Thus, a civil servant’s overall profile is therefore expected to be circumscribed by efficiency, effectiveness, integrity, accountability, responsiveness, representativeness, loyalty, equity, fairness, and so on.

READ ALSO: Richard Joseph On Governance In Africa

Those we call the civil service pioneers—Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji, Samuel Manuwa, M. O. Ani, I. O. Dina, Joseph McEwen, S. Ade Ojo, Ojimiri Johnson, C.O. Taiwo, Fola Ejiwunmi, G.E.A. Lardner, Sule Katagum, Joseph Imoukhuede; Ahmed Talib and Abubakar Koko (both of Udoji Commission), and many more—came into an inherited British civil service founded on a strong tradition. Those that became a part of this institution became living exemplars of its traditions and framework. Choosing a civil service career at that time conferred prestige and status in society. The condition of service supported this class recognition. At this point in its evolution, the civil services were not perfect but they stood out as value-based institutions distinguished in competence, professionalism and moral rectitude. They attracted the best and the brightest. Their internal governance was entrusted to an independent, non-partisan and impartial beacon of integrity—the Public Service Commission. Recruitment was strictly meritocratic and promotion was based on merit and performance. There were attractive competitive and comparable conditions of service and generous and well-funded pension package.

The second generation of public administrators and civil servants is from the late 60s to early 70s, the core of which constitutes those we fondly refer to as the super permanent secretaries. And the list of the members of this illustrious generation of public servants is sterling: S. Olabode Wey, M. A. Ejueyitchie, Abdul Aziz Atta, C. O. Lawson, Allison Ayida, Liman Ciroma, Shehu Musa, Gray Eromosele Longe, Ahmed Joda, Philip Asiodu, Ime Ebong, Mrs. Folayegbe Akintunde-Ighodalo, P. T. Odumosu, N. U. Akpan, Ali Akilu, Francesca Emanuel, Ibrahim Damcida, Musa Daggash, Prince Solomon Akenzua, Prince Festus Adesanoye, Princess Tejumade Alakija, Sunday Awoniyi, Adamu Fika, Olu Falae, G.P.O. Chikelu, Prince Sanda Ndayako, Theophilus Akinyele, Jonah Ogbole, and many others. The permanent secretaries that carried “super” qualifier amongst this corps were so-called because they were called upon at a most desperate and chaotic time in Nigerian history—the civil war period—to deploy their administrative acumen, competences and wisdom to take Nigeria through the pre-war, war and post-war periods. Their challenges also dovetailed into managing the command-and-control structure of the military during and after the war. So, as Theodore Roethke, the American poet, noted, the eyes of these public servants had to see in this dark time.

READ ALSO: A Conspiracy History: Unraveling The Puzzles In Nigeria’s Future

Before expounding the trajectory of the third generation of civil servants and public administrators, to which I belong, I need to note a few administrative dynamics and dysfunctions that heralded the emergence of the third generation. From the pioneering generation of civil servant, as noted earlier, Nigeria inherited a civil service that was essentially value-driven, public- oriented and highly professionalized. The values of the service as well as those existing within the Nigerian society of the period were mutually reinforcing to facilitate the core public spiritedness that the profession demanded. An added positive characteristic was the symbiotic relationship between town and gown that allowed for a policy architecture that benefitted from both. While the Victorian value set that grounded the civil service made it inevitably elitist, the real challenge for the pioneers was their inability to interrogate and deconstruct the value foundation of the civil service in ways that connect it with local ideas and traditions. This failure would later have terrible consequences, which the pioneers themselves anticipated.

Both the Adebo Commission (1971) and the Udoji Commission (1974) signaled the moment at which the system ought to have transited from the Weberian, “I-am-directed” administrative tradition, so that the system would be remodeled to facilitate its capacity readiness to carry the functionality of a developmental state. Unfortunately, the system was at the height of its success, preeminence and somewhat too self-satisfied to respond to reform prompting. The administrative dissonance between the civil service and the second and third development planning undermined the vision of placing the Nigerian state at the commanding height of the economy as a developmental state that was able to realize the objectives of transforming the lives of Nigerians. Several series of events—discovery of oil, the immense petrodollar that submerged the national revenue, the rejection of the Udoji recommendation for a managerial rehabilitation of the administrative system, the implementation of the Udoji bonanza which structurally disconnected the service wage structure from national productivity trajectory thus making recalibration within technical-rational parameter complex, and the 1975 purge of the civil service—eclipsed the golden age of the civil service, and aggravated the second generation that was already immersed in bureau-pathology. It was already an open season of societal and administrative anomie. The economy awash with oil revenue had already instigated national profligacy. And Prof. Wolfgang Stolper had become frustrated by the culture of planning without facts or statistics. Once the 80s were fully underway, the Nigerian economic and institutional dynamics was too weak to resist the structural adjustment programmes when they were foisted on the country.

From the 1975 civil service purge to the SAPs de-institutionalization process, the value-orientation of the inherited civil service ethos had been damagingly eroded. Professionalism and public-spiritedness had gone to the dogs! The culture of delayed gratification had been replaced by that of instant gratification (or something-for-nothing). The statist dynamics of prebendalism and clientelist framework could then easily invade the civil service in ways that instigated a culture of waste and redundancies as well as a damaged maintenance and asset managing system. The third generation of public servants were thus heralded by a ballooning cost of governance and an administrative debilitation that were a far cry from the system inherited by the pioneers, from Adebo to Ayida.

By the time my generation came of age, it was already deeply embroiled in the dynamics of the bureau-pathology that has debilitated the civil service. And this was all the worse because we had mentors and seniors who connected us to the golden age in terms of their passion, professionalism and knowledge-propelled zeal for service. They carried the grand narratives of promise and progress tied to nation-building. And they were all too willing to pass on their knowledge and zeal through a generational handholding. Unfortunately, however, it is my generation of administrators and public servants that has to pick up the brunt of institutional decay at its acutest point, and especially when the challenges of national integration and good governance have become more heightened. Nigeria now needs “a world-class public service delivering government policies and programmes with professionalism, excellence and passion”, to quote the vision of the NSPSR. But then, the “professional, efficient, effective and accountable” public servants who understand the system (past, present and in the light of daily growing innovations in public administration) to bring knowledge and skills into capacity readiness may really not be on ground. Besides, there is a dearth of think tanks and consulting firms that have developed services portfolios that have deep enough relevant contents, solutions-frameworks and core competences to address first-hand, the issues and problems for which governments in Nigeria are seeking solutions. And at that in measure that could seamlessly translate into handholding technical support services which MDAs require to excel or to be on top of their game.

READ ALSO: Speaking Truth To Power: Attahiru Jega, Toye Olorode, And Nigeria’s Future

The third generation and its notables (not in any verified order of seniority) would include Aliyu Mohammed, Aminu Saleh, Gidado Idris, Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji, Ignatius Olisemeka, Baba Gana Gingibe, Abu Obe, Yayale Ahmed, Ebele Okeke, Amal Pepple, Stephen Oronsaye, Oladapo Afolabi, Sali Bello, Goni Aji, Danladi Kifasi, Winifred Oyo-Ita and Folasade Yemi-Esan. They were generationally, confronted from the 80s through the 90s to date, with a huge tide of challenges and possibilities. The managerial revolution that the Udoji Commission recommended confronted the public service with new concepts and practices around target setting, performance assessments metrics, professionalized human resource departments, policy-engaged research, evidence-based policy intelligence, monitoring, evaluation and new project management accountability structures, management and operation research, etc. Of course, the succeeding governments, from independence, were equally concerned with the sustained decline in the effectiveness and efficiency of the civil service, and especially its disconnection from development planning and state objectives. Thus, administrative and governance reforms became key parts of service rehabilitation. But then, the reforms became as transformative as they also contributed to institutional problems. One example suffices here: the Dotun Philip Commission and the Civil Service Reorganisation Decree 43 of 1988 it inspired during the Babangida administration. One major reform item of this reform report was the paradigmatic shift away from the British Westminster parliamentary and administrative tradition to the American presidential system.

Within the remit of achieving a professionalized service, the Phillip Report focused on training to achieve specialization. Civil service officers were targeted based on the high-end qualifications they present at entry, and are required to undergo regular training and retraining. This led to the creation of a new bureaucratic structure made up of assistants, officers and directors. The unintended consequences of the reform transcended its initial objective of a professionalized and specialized service. For instance, the renaming of the permanent secretaries as director-generals was a politicising act that gave them the tenures of political appointees. They therefore occupied offices as long as the tenure of the appointing government lasts. By the late 90s, the fight to regain the value-based practices of the civil service was already getting lost. First, the service was already a mixed multitude—a genuine set of administrators and conscientious civil servants coexisting with a motley of politically-minded bureaucrats more inclined to political orientation, parochialism and primordial sentiments. Second, the category of mentors and seniors who were more than willing to assist in waging the war to relocate the system back to its value-based administrative tradition were already rapidly thinning out due to retrenchment and death.

It was thus that sincere reform efforts were contending with congealing anti-reform bureaucratic practices. Even after 1999 when the democratic experimentation commenced, and the civil service was under the reform imperative of re-professionalization to capacitate service delivery to Nigerians, the phenomenon of organized lateral transfers and the resultant stagnation and promotional block which had built up since the movement of the capital of Nigeria from Lagos to Abuja in the federal in 1990/1, had already become complicated and disenabling to the system. This measure of bureau-pathology was aggravated by a certain level of in-breeding that ensured that the service is not opened up in a structural sense that facilitates a systematic process of infiltration by external expertise and competences through sabbatical leave, staff exchange, projects-based exposures opportunity to officers, and so on. There was also a limited exposure to business and commercial orientation that constrained capacity by officers to take advantage of such emergent business models as PPPs, outsourcing, etc. in the last decades. The service also became constrained by a reluctance to modernize through a critical embrace of new technologies and digitization necessary for the implementation of open (cum electronic) government, and consequently a performance management culture that has the capacity to enhance national productivity Nigeria requires for a competitive twenty-first century economy.

In essence, the third generation of administrators and civil servants were confronted both with the challenge of modernizing the public service, and the imperative of becoming twenty-first century public servants patriotic and professional enough to drive the public service as a valuable complement to the demand for democratic governance in Nigeria. Each of the two generations was confronted with its own unique challenge. The first generation had to ensure that the inherited civil service retained its value-based framework so as to be able to function in the newly independent Nigeria. the second generation had to retain the functional efficiency of the civil service to be able not only to conduct the civil war but to also rehabilitate a war-torn Nigeria. The third generation is confronted with the challenge of democratic governance and the imperative of modernizing the public service to achieve efficient service delivery. And this challenge is all the heavier because the administrative and governance dynamics of the 60s, the 70s and the 80s cannot match up with the series of administrative and governance ideas that have all formed to insist on modernizing the government and its public management framework for an even better performance protocol and productivity than ever before.

Managerialism has transformed the way we understand government, governance and management. Essentially, the idea of the twenty-first century government is one that is democratic, citizen-centric and seamless in the way it connects its efficient and technology-enabled public service to an enlarged governance space that allows both the government and other nongovernmental and nonstate actors to brainstorm and strategize on how to generate policies that facilitate better service delivery to the populace. And the idea of a 21st century government is practically impossible without a corresponding 21st century public servant—constrained by ethical values (i.e. integrity, honesty, respect); democratic values (i.e. responsiveness, representativeness, rule of law); and professional values (i.e. excellence, innovation)—with the capacity to create and continually recreate public values within a framework of entrepreneurial dynamics that allows citizens’ and societal satisfaction. In essence, the twenty-first century public servant must be willing and able to operate in a VUCA—volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous—environment, armed with a large dose of public-spiritedness and a sense of the public service as a calling in the Levitical Order.

. Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary, and Professor, National Institute For Policy and Strategic Studies
(NIPSS), Kuru, Jos .
tolaopa2003@gmail.com

Read more authentic news on our social media platforms

Opinion

Professor Femi Badejo At 70: The Advocacy Of Equity

Published

3 days ago

March 7, 2025

NewTimes

Dele Jegede In Conversation With Prince Yemisi Shyllon

Prof. Toyin Falola

By Toyin Falola

People who are well-grounded in understanding the operations of the universe would quickly tell anyone who cares to listen that life is about words, signs, and symbols. Individuals in this category do not suddenly come to that knowledge midway through their life’s journey but through experiences, exposure, and study.

Regardless of their cultural identity or ideological mindset, everyone would accept that many things that happen in life are circumscribed by universal signs and symbols, which ordinary or inexperienced people may not easily understand. For example, where people are born and the environment where they grow up are vital signs that sometimes determine the trajectory of their life journey.

These things constitute what should be called signs because where we are born, and the environment where we grow up is crucial in shaping a few things in our lives, especially how we see the world or how we socialize in it, leading to the manner of which we negotiate the unfurling activities. More importantly, one’s lifelong destiny is often shaped by confident choices that humans make, especially the choice of what career path to follow or one’s ambition concerning one’s intellectual evolution. Professor Badejo’s signs and symbols of greatness are easily unmasked by his life’s series of activities, especially his career choices. Anyone expert in political science and law should excel in what they do, except if they do not have enough discipline to see themselves through.

The world has long cultivated the habit of celebrating individuals with outstanding contributions to the human world, and it is no coincidence that Professor Badejo falls into this category. The signs have always been there that an individual of his intellectual strength and persuasion cannot but contribute significantly to the straightening of things in a chaotic world, particularly in their conviction that as the world operates today, issues and activities are not orderly or in a right direction to guarantee collective advancement.

It cannot be overemphasized that every moment in human history is always dotted with a fair share of critical problems that often demand outstanding individuals’ precocious ideas and creative ingenuity. Professor Badejo is a shining example of the quest to make the world a better place. His foundation in the legal profession is deliberate, for he understands early enough that people who would dare the devil in today’s global society must understand the operations of their activities and predict human steps. This way, they can make timely decisions that would change the tides of things for the good of everyone. As already implied, the world always faces a fair share of its challenges because there are individuals who are blessed to solve issues using their intellectual strength. As a professor and a professional in legal affairs, Badejo is very grounded in dissecting international issues so that people can have a proper overview of the interplays of power and contestation in the global community. In other words, if you intend to take advantage of the vulnerable systems of the world, people like Badejo would be there, reminding you of the atrocities sparked by the parochialism of your ambitions.

It is exciting to discover that Badejo has profound knowledge of political science, which places him in good condition to understand political figures’ operations, intentions, and inclinations toward whatever actions they embark on. It, therefore, makes it more rewarding for him to use his intellect to redefine public relations through political insights so that the human world will attain progress and sustain the one they have already accomplished. That Badejo has worked in different places, especially in international locations, using his educational insights and professional skills to improve the conditions of the world speaks highly of his dedication to making an indelible impact.

I cannot state enough how vital Badejo has been. As indicated, the signs that he would make such accomplishments exemplify his career choices. While we cannot deny his commitment to such ambitions, we cannot understate how he has dedicated himself to getting the best from his knowledge. We, therefore, cannot undervalue his dedication to academic engagements, as that forms the basis of his intellectual advancement today―one which continues to brighten his life in tremendous ways. At the international level, he has served in different capacities; the summary is that he was either contracted to use his wealth of experience to save the day or use his professional expertise to provoke a change.

His efforts in community development services, especially in his involvement with the international community or non-governmental organizations, have always demanded his intellectual support. This cannot even overshadow his contributions to building the world’s human capital. It is interesting to state that Professor Badejo is a teacher who has made substantial contributions to knowledge generally. Apart from being a seasoned researcher, he has always been dominant in teaching, producing a sizeable fraction of students who underwent tutelage under him. This explains why many people can attest to how profoundly this scholar has redefined how they see the world and the things in life. Teachers hold a good place in our collective lives because they sacrifice very much to mold people’s minds correctly.

Badejo belongs to the class of educators who make incredibly critical efforts to improve Africa. He has painstakingly conducted research to study different issues, especially in areas of political science and, by extension, the legal profession. His success is significant, and he is enthusiastic in his endeavors. I should inform you that although the activity of teaching is conventionally seen as restricted to the four walls of an institution, it, however, transcends such conceptual location; teaching is what we do when we enlighten groups of people, communities of learners, and class of individuals to impact them or provoke them to change socially.

It gets more enjoyable when you know that Badejo has made an invaluable impression on us all with his solid academic publications, from which many of us today learn. In 2024, Badejo published an exemplary work titled Nigeria Corruption Perception Data. Apart from the fact that this work produces an objective overview of how the country is perceived by its citizens and the world generally, it is also an indictment of the political class about how they manage the systems and institutions in the country, thereby affecting Nigeria’s political and economic destiny in some ways. One who knows Badejo knows that such academic engagements increase his adrenaline because it will use his intellectual expertise in that domain and allow him to present his thoughts or ideas to the people. He has consistently revealed to the world the undergarments of Nigeria’s political systems, especially how it has become vulnerable in the hands of the few who control it. In what manner and character does one explain the problems of unbridled leadership compared to how neocolonial Nigerian leaders have particularly (mis)managed the country’s available resources, demonstrating their myopic imagination about the future? Issues like this are always given the necessary attention, and it explains how Badejo addresses fundamental issues, not the periphery.

Perhaps because of his intellectual depth, he has consistently produced respectable works on African democracy, using the Nigerian situation as his experiment laboratory. On many occasions, he has suggested to the political elites that they should make conscious efforts towards transforming Nigeria’s democracy and save it from whatever problems it may face. He takes this position, knowing that it is the freedom highlighted by democracy that is fundamental to the creation of a functional society, which would produce the necessary atmosphere in which people can grow. He understands that although democracy may have internal failings and even complications that could be a threat, especially when mismanaged, it remains the only avenue through which divergent thinking can be amplified so that the best ideas and approaches can be born. Such an individual cannot but be celebrated and even appreciated for their invaluable contributions to the human world. They have paid their dues and thus would always be accorded royal treatment, for their voices remind us of what we should be as a collective and not what our impulses want us to be.

On May 15, 2025, I will offer an in-person tribute and a lecture in his honor.

Opinion

Natasha As Worthy Rebel

Published

4 days ago

March 6, 2025

NewTimes

Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

Elegant Natasha. Handsome Natasha. Beautiful Natasha. Nice Natasha. Sharp Natasha. Clever Natasha. Natasha the envy of men and women. Natasha of several qualities – above all, Natasha the rebel; Natasha a worthy rebel. Natasha a good patriot that is a worthy patriot. Everything the columnist has just stated or has just outlined or has just highlighted constitutes his interpretation of Senator (Barrister, Mrs.) Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s performance when she appeared before Arise News Good Morning Show on Friday, 28 February, 2025 to throw light on the drama that happened in the Senate a day or so before.

What was the drama on that day really about? What happened in the Senate between her and the Senate President was it really all about her seat re-allocation or re-assignment? Or, was it essentially about something else to entrap her – as she was allegedly told on the floor of the Senate on the afore-mentioned day of drama? The columnist saw everything as shown live on his television set that was privately power-generated (in this power-less or electricity-less clime) from the beginning to the end. The columnist wondered why, just why Natasha reacted the way she did, and why specifically she dared the Senate President the way she did. What was inevitably amiss? Why was/is Natasha claiming everybody’s attention the way she did (and she is still dong)? Why were her fellow senators, more than several of the male senators, I mean, flowing to her in her river of rebellion against the standards of the Senate that must be kept up? Was it because even if she was right in her classical democratic rebellion of a loner, it was necessary that the prestige of the great senators and that of their equally great but almighty President who is not more than first among equals should not be allowed to dwindle? And why was the Senate President so stupefied when Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan brandished Order 10 several times as she rebelliously but decorously stood her ground, grounds or no grounds? Did the Senate President at any time try to have a bite or a taste of Natasha’s inviting stupefacient something that had caused him the stupefaction I was allowed personally to notice by the inner master on that day that the rebellious one knocked him to stupor – or to a state of near-stupor before his like-minded senators came to his rescue? All these questions are significant ones (or must be significant ones) for all those who desire to find a factual and truthful solution to what is growing to be a pattern of values between the Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Senator (Mrs.) Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the very wife of Mr. Godswill Akpabio’s good friend (or now erstwhile good friend?).

On Saturday, 29 February, 2025, that is, almost a week ago, I read entirely on pages 10-12 of Saturday Vanguard details of the Natasha Uduaghan-Godswill Akpabio problem and other proclamations, claims and counter-claims, including Natasha’s full interview she granted Arise News Good Morning Show which I had already alluded to. Natasha answered more than very satisfactorily all the questions put to her concerning the following: “allegations by a northern group”; “harassment of clerk and requests for CVs of staff”; “how the sitting arrangement issue started”; “denial of rights”; and “the night-cub incident.” My assertion(s) to each of her every answer is clearly clear and transparently transparent, and brings me to this conclusion: A highly brilliant and sharp female senator; a highly valuable, worthy, no nonsense female senator that Senator (Drs. Mrs.) Remi Tinubu, our President’s dear, dear wife, who is equally bright and brilliant, needs in her core team of patriots to help make our country reach its rightful destination. But I have no persuasive influence whatever upon her to make her see Natasha as I see her – or as I am seeing her. Yet I should tell her as the inner master tells me to say to her what I am now saying to her. Natasha certainly has her foibles – like all human-beings, including our one and only Godswill Akpabio. Her foibles, however, pale into nothing or insignificance in comparison with her positively rebellious bent and manner.
Since the matter between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and Senator Godswill Akpabio entered our television screens and newspapers and everywhere outside the main-stream media the Senate President has not deemed it right to claim our attention with at least one important line of defence from his own persuasive mouth. Why? Others, some of whom claim to be activists (activists my foot!) have been speaking for him. Why? If he does not want to say anything he should instruct his hangers-on, including his lawyer(s), his acolytes and cohorts and sycophants, and Natasha’s back-stabbers in the Senate, to keep mum until the brouhaha stills itself, evaporates and vanishes. But will it? I don’t think so until he transparently opens his line of persuasive rebuttal himself.

By the way, why did his wife, his damsel (who, like Natasha, is an impeccable communicator), come into the fray? What for? I saw her on television trying to persuade people like us in vain. After all said and done I exclaimed to myself “What for?” in the trope of a question. She said several things which I, as a literary detective and gleaner, punctured. I will only mention one or two here. (After all, I am not Natasha’s lawyer as I am not Unoma’s lawyer). She said, among other things, that no woman or women ever complained against her disciplined darling husband as a governor or minister – if I heard her well. I chuckled. No woman or women who succumbed to the sheets-whims-and-caprices of her darling governor- or minister- husband would complain openly or in loud silence to Unoma or to anyone for that matter close to Unoma. I put this to Unoma as a literary gleaner who is ever objective come rain or sunshine. Secondly, her open swipe at Natasha’s husband has drawn the very decent man who cannot hurt a fly out of his refined shell. I am sure that she and her disciplined husband have since seen and read the mature and refined letter of the highly cultured Alema of the very beautifully great Kingdom of Warri, the envy of many kingdom-less kingdoms, on what has been that shouldn’t have been.

There are other things I want to say but which I am nicely holding back as a top Niger Delta personage. What I can do best is to immerse myself in my own quiet way on how to bring this matter to a good and transparent end. The Senate President and the Alema of Warri must meet to resolve the knot in the favour of their friendship and that of the people of the whole of the Niger Delta and beyond. The situation needs to be remedied. I know how, but I won’t open my mouth wide here. For the time being, however, Natasha, our worthy rebel, needs to be appeased with appeasable appeasement by appeasers agreeable to the parties and all the parties in our Niger Delta and the Confluence State and beyond. I hope I am not building castles in Spain. Phew!

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

Opinion

IBB In The Annals Of Civil Service Reforms In Nigeria

Published

4 days ago

March 6, 2025

NewTimes

Prof. Tunji Olaopa

By Tunji Olaopa

The autobiography is a most delicate, complex and indeed disruptive art form. It is the autobiographer’s authorial insistence to be heard in terms of his or her narrative addition to a historical discourse. In fact, it is the autobiographer’s narration of the historical event from his or her own perspective. And more often than not, when the autobiographer is a fundamental participant in the event, the complexities of that event and the circumstances surrounding it are multiplied. Only very few autobiographies enjoy global approval. And that is because the art form is seen as an ego trip. That sentiment is summed up by the English biographer, Humphrey Carpenter: “Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying.” This is even made worse if the protagonists are critical individuals whose lives have affected national trajectories. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) is one such critical protagonist, and his autobiography has arrived.

A Journey in Service has since started generating lots of furors in all strata of the Nigerian public space, online and offline. Lots of opinions have tied IBB to several significant historical moments in Nigeria, especially the annulment of the June 12 elections, and the demise of MKO Abiola. What many have conveniently glossed over, and a case I have consistently made, is that personal narrative in the forms of autobiography and memoirs serve a unique function in terms of their historical import. If A Journey in Service had not been written, we will all be gasping within the yawning silence of the political and administrative gaps that ought to have been filled with whatever the autobiographer has to say. But now it has been written, and we can then commence the journey of unraveling how the narrative fits or fails to fit in with the existing accounts of Nigeria’s political development.
This personal narrative has a critical import for me as a historian of Nigeria’s administrative and reform trajectories. The Babangida administration played a very fundamental role in articulating a significant portion of Nigeria’s administrative reform architecture. And so, that portion of the trajectory, and the entire institutional reform agenda of the Nigerian state, will not be complete without adding the voice and perspective of the key protagonist to the understanding of how the reform policy emerged. No matter what anyone thinks, the imperative of national history demands that such an account be added to the stock of what we already know, and to flesh out a better understanding of what we already know. The idea therefore is to see how the protagonist, no matter the groundswell of national opinion for or against him, fits into a larger picture of the political and administrative frameworks that enable us to see where the nation is coming from and where it is headed.

This is a task every institutional reformer must long for without getting sidetracked by sentimental opinion that accords blame and slings mud. This is part of what makes IBB and A Journey in Service such a delight for me. Unfortunately, the head of the historic administration does not consider that irreducible reform agenda that distinguishes his administration so significantly as to celebrate its conception, elements and operation, as well as its limitations, in a significant autobiography. That responsibility has been passed to posterity. This piece rescues that fundamental omission.

The pre-Babangida administrative reform narrative must always revert back to the 1974 Udoji Commission. That Commission is singular because it was the first to attempt an alignment between Nigeria’s reform efforts and the emerging managerial revolution in public administration across the globe. The Udoji Commission took its immediate inspiration from the Lord Fulton Committee of 1968 in Britain. The task of the Fulton Report was to inquire into the capability readiness of the British civil service to confront the modern British society and its technological complexity. Fulton’s most significant recommendation was the displacement of the cult of generalist amateur civil servants in an approaching administrative dispensation that requires a critical mass of new managers who possess the professionalism and specialist expertise to harness the talents needed to make the civil service economic, effective and efficient.
By the time the Udoji Commission was inaugurated, Nigeria had also reached the critical juncture where it became imperative to ask whether the Weberian assumptions underlying the British administrative legacy were capable of tackling the urgent governance requirement of a postcolonial society. The wage impasse which the system had been confronting before independence, for the Commission, was a symptom of a deeper administrative malady represented by a bureaucratic culture that had arrested innovation and entrepreneurial creativity in the analysis and implementation of policies. Managerialism therefore provides the most timely and perfect means of making the civil service system align with the goals of national development.

The Udoji Commission went on to leverage the global good practice of the time that calls for a new style of public service that deploys new management techniques of Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS), Management by Objectives (MBO), the precursor of what is today called the performance management system, project management system, among others, that were totally alien to the Nigerian public service, at the time. The new management architecture that the envisioned management system would have institutionalized would obviously have been inadequate but would have laid a critical substructure that would have set Nigeria on the new productivity paradigm that assisted Malaysia, Singapore, the Asian Tigers and many other developing countries that are within Nigerian global ranking at the time.

The most devastating blows that the civil service suffered were those created not by it but the governance tradition that militarism and “New Federalism” of the post-civil war years created where the rigorous analytical frame that governed development investment got replaced with the unreflective “with immediate effect” command and control governance tradition which created huge process, policy, capacity, performance and resource gaps. The Udoji Commission and its limitations, as well as the succeeding Phillips and Ayida Commissions, could be understood only within this military tradition of which IBB was a significant part. When he assumed office in 1985, one of the most immediate decisions was, according to his admission, the need to “strengthen the practice of the presidential system with clear economic, political, and social reforms to strengthen the nation as a constitutional democracy based on the presidential system.” Assuming the title of a “President” was therefore more than a mere nominal gesture to narcissism. Rather, he said, it was “a summation of our consensus on the need to preserve and strengthen the presidential system and make it work better for the nation.”

But a nominal title was not enough. A commitment to the presidential system, IBB insisted, defined the necessity of “structuring a reform programme around institutions to make it work.” And given the tension that already was prevalent in the heated polity, IBB surmised, the reforms that must make any significance must be as comprehensive as the administration could make it. And the first act of symbolic gesture was negative: the urgency of the need “to review the various draconian decrees, convictions, and pending cases that bordered on human rights violations.” The Exchange Control (anti-sabotage) Decree 7 and Decree 4 (Public Officers Protection Against False Accusation) had to be significantly reviewed. This was followed by the real positive task of reforming the economy and governance in ways that go beyond “knee-jerk populist reflexes.”

The task, in governance and economic terms, was therefore to “Remove the government from the role of an enormous money changer to that of an enabler of the appropriate economic environment. We also needed to let the economy, in general, breathe more freely.” It was to liberalize the economy and make government an able enabler rather than occupying the ‘commanding heights of the economy.”

Unfortunately for us all, IBB fails to dwell on what could have been a defining dimension of A Journey in Service, the civil service reform framework of the Babangida administration. This is shocking but revealing in itself. One possible reason is that the author subsumed the civil service reform under the broader political reforms: “Our political programme targeted the critical areas of political and socio-cultural restructuring highlighted by the Political Bureau report: the party system, the electoral process, including election administration, the federal structure, the civil service, and the problem of succession, including political leadership.”

And yet, this fails to do justice to the significance of the Babangida administration and its inheritance of the Dotun Philips Commission from the Buhari-Idiagbon administration. The Phillips Study Team is significant because it had the task of re-organizing the operations of the civil service in terms of professionalism that will eventually align it with the managerial revolution recommended by Udoji. And that reform effort alone cements his administration’s significance in the annals of administrative history in Nigeria, and a fundamental contribution to the cumulation of reform knowledge in Nigeria. IBB already gave the significant intellectual basis of the restructuring that was an imperative: to achieve “national rebirth and future greatness,” there is a need for political and economic restructuring that frees up the national space for transformation. And one way to do this, according to him, was cultivate intellectuals: “We needed the input of intellectuals to enlighten the business of government.” There was also the crucial need for the public service as the engine of government business. It beats me how IBB did not see that.

The Dotun Philips Study Group was constituted by the Buhari-Idiagbon administration in 1985, with the objective of undertaking an interrogation of the structure, mode of operation and strategy of the civil service in the light of contemporary administrative situation, as well as finding means by which the eroded professionalism of the system could be restored. After the 1985 coup, Babangida inherited the study group and transformed it into a full-blown commission whose task was to keep up with the objective of aligning the spirit of managerialism and a professionalized civil service with the form and spirit of presidentialism. This was to be incorporated into the total package of the Civil Service Reforms through a Civil Service Reorganisation Decree No. 43 of 1988. Given the administration’s concern with the rigid Soviet-styled centralization of the economy and the need to open the economy up to market forces, it was only logical that the administration would adopt the critical managerial principle of letting managers manage by having greater control on critical resources. This possesses the capacity to inspire a wholesale decentralization of the HRM function to MDA. The policy choice here is between centralized resource governance for example where the civil service commission wields constitutional powers for recruitment, promotion and discipline exercised at top management levels by the Commission while delegating the powers to MDAs at middle to lower levels.

The Philips reform was compromised essentially because (a) it took the issues involved in professionalism too far (for instance, by attempting to make a professional out of everybody within the civil service); and (b) its own unique managerial thrust was directed towards integrating the civil service into the presidential system of government, with one unintended consequence being that professionalization turned into politicization through an attempt, for instance, that turned an administrative post (permanent secretary) into a political one (director-general). And yet, this is not a failure because it was a logical reform complement to the short-circuited Udoji Commission recommendation of a public service founded on performance management, and its underlying managerial philosophy was significant in getting the Babangida administration its governance template for transforming national development.

I insist that an administration is only as good as its reform agenda, both in design and implementation. The Babangida administration gave Nigeria’s reform trajectory one of the key moments in the protracted attempt to translate the gains and efficiencies of a managerial opportunity to a bureaucratic system.

. Olaopa is a Professor of Public Administration and Chairman,
Federal Civil Service Commission .